…within reason. I know that the top answer will be to flash a different OS on your device. A lot of us are not at that point right now.

So I was texting with my wife in Spanish and suddenly a system bubble popped up, “would you like to translate this to English?” At a minimum, this means that Google is reading the words on my screen at all times to detect the language. I don’t know if this is possibly done on device, but translation certainly isn’t. I’ve already changed my system translation app to Translate You.

I’ve noticed other times that Google watches or listens in the background. It has a feature to detect ambient songs playing, for example.

What other standard settings should I check for to prevent Google from watching and listening to my phone in the background?

Edit: I was not using a Google messeging app at the time. It was detecting the text from another app. The specific setting in this case was to switch off “Live Translate,” in System settings.

  • hightrix@lemmy.world
    53·
    3 months ago

    This is the answer.

    Don’t buy a phone made by an advertising company if you don’t want everything you use it for to feed ads data.

      • GoogleSellsAds@sh.itjust.works
        51·
        3 months ago

        Are you seriously that dumb that you’re comparing selling ads in a store (the App Store) with selling ads on every other inch of the internet?

        There is quite some difference between selling ad-space in a store and having ads as your one and only business model. You wouldn’t know of course and that’s why you are a Google fanboy.